I had the great luck of sitting in on Diane Leafe Christian's Ecovillage slide show the other night -- and the great news is that she's giving another one right here in Berkeley, California, on Saturday night!.

Diane is the author of two groundbreaking books on the subject: Finding Community and Creating a Life Together.

If you're intrigued about the concept of an Ecovillage, but know little or nothing about them, like me, this is a great way for you to catch up, in a big way, in about 90 minutes, with one of the formost authorities on the subject -- and in a nice friendly party potluck atmosphere.

Now what could be better! :-)

What: Ecovillages: Where They Are, What They're Doing, Why They’re Important -- A Slide show and talk with Diana Leafe Christian

When: Saturday, August 23, 2008

Where: 2339 Parker Street, Berkeley 94704

(south campus close to Telegraph/Dwight) top floor lounge

TIME: 7:00 - 9:00 pm

Free But Donations Appreciated!!

RSVP encouraged but not required to: Freya Carol Hermanson: urherenow@sbcglobal.net

Here's the info straight from the source:

Diane Sez:
If you know anyone in the Bay Area who might like to see my Ecovillage slide show, described below, I'm showing it again on Saturday, Aug. 22nd at the Parker Street Co-op in Berkeley. Here's a description, below.

Ecovillages: Where They Are, What They're Doing, Why They’re Important Slide show and talk with Diana Leafe Christian

Saturday, August 23 2339 Parker Street, Berkeley 94704 (south campus close to Telegraph/Dwight) top floor lounge 7:00 - 9:00 pm Donation Appreciated

With over 200 photos, this hour-long slide show shows the ecological, economic, and social/cultural/spiritual aspects of sustainability in ecovillages worldwide. Diana shows how ecovillages use: * Permaculture design, natural building, off-grid power * Alternative technology, sustainable agriculture * Local currencies, on-site cottage industries * Cooperative decision-making, conflict resolution, and much more

Three kinds of ecovillages:
* Intentional communities in the Industrialized North

* Ecologically aware traditional villages in the Global South

* Sustainability education centers in both hemispheres.

Ecovillage examples include: * Findhorn in Scotland, Auroville in India, Crystal Waters in Australia

* Ecovillages in Italy, Germany, Russia, Israel, South Africa, Senegal, Brazil

* In North America, including Earthaven, Dancing Rabbit, Ecovillage at Ithaca, and Los Angeles Ecovillage

Diana Leafe Christian is author of "Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities" and "Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community" (New Society Publishers, 2003 and 2007). Editor of "Communities" magazine for 14 years, she now publishes “Ecovillages,” a free online publication (EcovillageNewsletter.org). Diana speaks at conferences, and leads workshops for and does consultations for communities in the U.S. and Canada. She lives at Earthaven Ecovillage in North Carolina. www.DianaLeafeChristian.org.

Refreshments will be served.

RSVP encouraged but not required to: Freya Carol Hermanson: urherenow@sbcglobal.net

Diana@ic.org (new address)

www.DianaLeafeChristian.org

Author of Finding Community and Creating a Life Together

Sign up for "ECOVILLAGES," my free bimonthly newsletter: www.EcovillageNews.org

There's an awesome all day Dancing/Live Music event going on today at Wishfest in Second Life, courtesy of The Wishfarmers!

It's a Benefit for the American Cancer Society - with an INCREDIBLE collection of talent pooled for the occasion!

Date: TODAY! July 18, 2008
Time: 10am - 10pm SL time
Location:
Wishfest on Financial Isle

Relay Raiders present a 12 hour music event that will take place just before
the opening of the relay weekend.

There are 2 stages. A red stage that will be played by musicians and a
purple stage that will be played by DJ's.

At 7pm DJ Dakota Christensen will take over both streams as we will remember
Stori Knopfli. This will end at 10pm and will be followed by fireworks.

This all will take place at the Wishfest Sim(Financial Isle).

That kindly has been donated for use by The Wishfarmers.

Schedule Purple Stage:
10am - 12pm: DJ Ionic (Techno/Minitech)
12pm - 2pm: DJ Jenns (Electro)
2pm - 4pm: DJ Miss Cyberpink (Electro)
4pm - 7pm: DJ Nexeus Fatale (a Variation of audio pleasure)
7pm - 10pm: DJ Dakota Christensen will take over both streams as we will
remember Stori Konpfli. 7.16/07

Schedule Red Stage:
10am - Cylindrian Rutabaga
11am - Freestar Tammas
12pm - Soundcircel Flanagan
1pm - DJ Bono (Progressive House)
2pm - Relaycast by Maximillion Kleene, Mimi Carpenter and Dolmere Talamasca
3pm - Dewran Wopat
4pm - Charles Coleman
5pm - Dolmere Talamasca
6pm - JueL Resistance
7pm - 10pm: DJ Dakota Christensen will take over both streams as we will
remember Stori Knopfli. 7.16/07

Hey guys, time to put good taste aside this weekend and come to the premiere of the comedy-horror flick I'm in - and I sing the theme song for - premiering this weekend in San Francisco.

I'll be there for Friday night's 7:30 show!

Hope to see you there!

Don't come if you're squeamish. Like, seriously. It's a gross flick :-)

Funny as hell. Arguably more funny than gross, but I won't mince words.

Here's the poop from the directors (Rick Popko and Dan West):

SF world premiere of "RetarDEAD," a feature-length horror/comedy from
the creators of "Monsturd."

The premiere will be held at San Francisco's Victoria Theatre
Located at: 2961 16th Street (BART accessible! - 16th Street Station)
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 863-7576

Tix are $10, and advanced tix can be purchased online at:
http://www.victoriatheatre.org/calendar.htm

Showtimes are:
July 11 & 12 (Friday and Saturday): 7:00 p.m. & 9:30 p.m.
July 13 (Sunday): 5:30 & 7:30 p.m.

Important: Limited edition barf bags will be handed out to the first 500 ticket
holders!

The filmmakers will be on hand to host a Q&A after each show.

The trailer and a Creative Commons MP3 of the end theme song can be
found here:

http://www.4321films.com/retardead/index.html

Story synopsis:
Evil has come to the Butte County Institute of Special Education, and its students will never be the same.

After surviving a ferocious battle with his own monstrous creation, Dr. Stern returns to continue his horrible research in this blood-drenched sequel to the cult hit "Monsturd." Armed with a fatal hyper-intelligence serum, the mad doctor transforms a quiet community into an army of flesh-eating zombies.

It's a showdown of limb-chopping, head-bursting proportions as Stern's nemesis, F.B.I. agent Susan Hannigan, and the local sheriff's department take on the zombie plague in the ultimate battle royale.

Wishfest is a DIY art and music festival where anyone can show up with a stream and load it onto a stage and perform.

Somatika Xiao has re-located Wishfest to a new home on Financial Isle.

Here's the SLURL to get there. I go on at 7:00pm SLT/PST.

Update: Nick Noir will still do a few songs at 7! So I'll go on a little bit after him

Here's the line up:

5:30 pm - Just Some Guy (Gary Bukowski)


6:00 pm - Cylindrian Rutabega


7:00 pm - Me

Gary Bukowski




Nick Noir at Wishfest 1.0

I'll have a link to the stream up here soon.

Cya tonight!

I don't really feel informed enough about the situation to say anything too useful. But suffice to say, it ain't too cool, and I'm concerned.

I've already expressed my concerns in a song a few years ago [lyrics]. Same company, different country, and in many ways, same shit, different day. This is becoming the rule, and not the exception, for technology companies, nowadays.

What do we do when using technology to support over zealous government authorities is just "good business?"

What do we do when it's a company like Google. Who, arguably, none of us could live without?
(Hey, I'm just speaking for myself.)

I don't have any answers. Sorry. Just concerns.

Maybe a little evil: Google outs Indian man to authorities
By Jacqui Cheng, for Ars Technica.

An Indian man was arrested over the weekend for allegedly posting derogatory and vulgar content about Indian politician Sonia Gandhi on Google's social networking site, Orkut. 22-year-old Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid had posted his comments in an Orkut community called "I hate Sonia Gandhi" through an Orkut account associated with his Gmail account. With Google's help, local authorities were able to verify Vaid's identity and make the arrest...

Google admitted today that it had forked over Vaid's information after it was requested by Indian law enforcement. A spokesperson for Google told IDG News Service that, while the company is committed to protecting user privacy, it must obey local laws and legal processes.

Hey sorry this took so long to pull together. I've had complaints from people who actually took the time to go to my music site, to try to find a song they liked, to no avail. Doh!

So here it is, a little A-Z Index -- of all my published songs to date, that I know about -- and it will just live on the lisarein.com homepage from now on.

Hope to see you at the show tomorrow night :)

lisa

Where: Rock It Room
http://www.rock-it-room.com/

406 Clement St.
San Francisco, CA 94118

When: Wednesday, May 14th 7:30pm

Cover: $5

Streaming url: http://66.186.45.114:8022

Blue Fusion Lake House slurl: SLURL

I hope you'll join me in Real Life in San Francisco, and in Second Life or via webstream from anywhere in the world, as I perform at 9pm SLT/PST time on May 14, 2008.

I'm just a little part of a huge Second Life showcase featuring SL star Keiko Takamura and 5 other artists -- but I get a full half hour set.

Here's a link to my music, if you're unfamiliar with my recent stuff: http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/my_music_live_video/

The complete line up (all times are SLT/PST):

7:30 - BabbleGrabble Swindlehurst http://babblegrabble.com

8:00 - Pato Milo http://www.myspace.com/patomilo

8:30 - Jacopo de Nicola http://www.myspace.com/jacopodenicola

9:00 - Haley Bailey (aka Lisa Rein) http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/my_music_live_video/

9:30 - Melanie Keller http://www.myspace.com/melaniekeller

10:00 - Keiko Takamura featuring ZeroOne Paz on percussion http://www.myspace.com/keikotakamura

They have free Wifi at Rocket Room too, so, even if you have to work, you can bring your laptops and geek out at the show!

Hope to see you there!

Who: JueL Resistance

When: Sunday, April 13, 2008 - 7pm

Where: Wishfest 1.0 - Solaris II - Second Life

As one of the first indie musicians to join and perform in Second Life, she has built a strong presence in the virtual world. A world where she is also known for her visual art work; her paintings, drawings and photography are displayed in various galleries throughout Second Life.

JueL also owns and performs at the infamous "Living Room #13" where she has headlined and hosted Naked Acoustic Sessions for almost 2 years, bringing in only the finest seasoned and raw musicians of SL.

JueL is currently working on her latest CD while preparing for her 2nd adventure to Mahoneyfest in Georgia. Her latest work in progress is a compilation of both recent and past experiences blended soulfully into a deep groove of blues, americana, folk and "unplugged acoustics".

We're very excited that JueL will be coming by to play Wishfest Sunday night!

Nick Noir will be going on right after her, at 8pm.

See you there!

Come play at Wishfest 1.0 !

Last night's Wishfest 1.0 show started off our festival with a big bang. About 24 people showed up -- that's actually a lot for an SL event! As you can see from the movies, it was really hoppin!

Here's my favorite of Cylindrian's songs, "Sweet Alice."

I've made it available both as a big 54 MB and a smaller 20 MB file.

I've also made an audio file available as an MP3 (6 MB) and a higher fidelity wav file.

There's also a lengthier movie (19 MB) of the same song that includes some pre-song conversation with the crowd, and clip of another song (64 MB), that I'm sure Cylindrian will soon tell me the rightful name of :)

Here's another of my favorite's from the Feather's Boa installation. Bryn Oh and Georg Janick, two other Node Zero Gallery artists, will also be setting up some of their incredible creations soon.

The next acts that I know about at this time (because, of course, it is a Flash Festival - and if things are successful, there should be people on stage springint up at any time), is

Sunday night, April 13, at 7pm SLT,

when JueL Resistance (More on her in a bit...) will be doing a set, and Nick Noir is coming on right after her at 8pm.

You should go on next! Drop me a line: Haley Bailey in-world or lisa@wishfarmers.com so I can add you to the roster and the "Wishfest Performers" group.

Anyone can join the "Wishfest 1.0" group to be notified when people are going on.

Last night's show with Cylindrian Rutabega provided an awesome launch for Wishfest 1.0 (link is a SLURL to Solaris II).

It would be great for you to go there and check out the space to truly appreciate it. And I, of course, want you to appreciate it, so you'll set up a space there, or perform there in some capacity.

Cylindrian brought up spoken word poetry last night, and reminded me that I hadn't really made it clear that Poets are welcome too :-)

Last night's show with Cylindrian Rutabega provided an awesome launch for Wishfest 1.0 (link is a SLURL to Solaris II).

It would be great for you to go there and check out the space to truly appreciate it. And I, of course, want you to appreciate it, so you'll set up a space there, or perform there in some capacity.

Cylindrian brought up spoken word poetry last night, and reminded me that I hadn't really made it clear that Poets are welcome too :-)

I just had a great phone conversation with Cylindrian Rutabega, who is playing at Wishfest tonight at 7pm.

She's been hanging out on Solaris II for two days, just wandering around and enjoying the SIM.

The beauty is that Solaris II is none other than the latest work of artist Somatika Xiao (a.k.a. David Stumbaugh). Somatika is the artist who collaborated with Spot Draves on the Sheep Vortex exhibit at Node Zero Gallery last month. So here's how it started. Wishfarmer Gary Bukowski, Somatika, and I came up with the idea a couple weekends ago of something called a "Flash Festival." Similar to the Flash Mobs of Real Life, combined with the old school charm of a Full Moon Rave.

For those of you who don't remember such events of lore, Full Moon Raves were wonderful free dance/art/music festivals that happened in the early 90's, where you went to the first location just to pick up a map to the second location, which was usually on the beach or in a park somewhere, all tucked away, and usually on private land with the owner's blessing, where you were generally safe and sound.

These events were free, equipped with lots of water and oranges and things, and often came with a free pancake breakfast in the morning, often while you and everyone watched the sun come up together.

We're trying to capture a little of that magic, while also expanding upon it a bit to include dancers, artists, and performers of all kinds. The sky's the limit, if you have a live act, or even a finished work, that you'd like to stream to a large number of people from all over the world.

So again, a "Flash Festival" is kind of ad hoc DIY combination of music, dance, film and art festivals all rolled up into one -- and for as long as it lasts!

We've also decided to let the artists run wild, where the question we're trying to answer is: "What if we made a big art installation, with a main floor, three stages, and also an underground cavernous area (The Rabbit Hole), where anyone could stake out a little area and set up a display. (I hope it goes without saying that object spam will be removed :)

Node Zero Gallery artist Feathers Boa has already set up an little installation in the Rabbit Hole. Your art installation could be next :-)

Feathers Boa's Art Installation on Solaris II (in the Rabbit Hole)

Then what if we took it a step further, and set up each stage with its own media url, and each with its own set of video screens, and wrote some code to enable anyone that belonged to our "Wishfest Performers" group to jump on stage, load in their stream, and just start playing.

If all your friends sign up for the "Wishfest 1.0" group - you can send a notice to them to let them know you're onstage and playing (or in advance to let them know when you will be going on.

Yes film makers, djs, and video artists, you can invite some friends and load in your pre-existing video/media streams, if you wish. It will work fine! Have a party - Throw a Rave! This island should be able to hold a lot of people. We made it sturdy with lots of Wishfarmer love.

So teleport to Wishfest on Solaris II and decide for yourself how your art/music/films/dance/performanceart/dj mixes etc. etc. etc. can work into the linearly twisted beauty of this SIM, courtesy of Somatika Xiao.

If anyone has any questions, or tech issues, comments or ANYTHING - IM Haley Bailey in world or email Haley Bailey/Lisa Rein at lisa@wishfarmers.com.

On April 1, 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet had a congressional hearing on virtual worlds.

The official title of the hearing was "Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars (link goes to official witness list).

Video of entire hearing (300+ MB)

Witnesses:

1. Philip Rosedale, Founder/Chairman of the Board/Former CEO, Linden Labs

2. Susan Tenby, Senior Manager, Community Development, TechSoup

3. Colin J. Parris, PhD, Vice President, Digital Convergence, IBM Research/IBM Corporation

4. Larry Johnson, PhD, The New Media Consortium

Philip Rosedale	This hearing was the first time I've seen any representatives from virtual worlds get a chance to actually explain themselves. I think the witnesses did a great job of making what I'm going to start calling "The case for virtual worlds." (What I believe to be an open and shut case :) Four "witnesses" presented to the Subcommittee that morning. Their names are in the table below, along with relevant stop/start times for their presentations.
If you saw the Daily Show clip on the Congressional Hearings, you may have been concerned about congress being confused about terrorists using virtual worlds. But actually, terrorism was only mentioned a couple times in freaked out passing. The real story is that Virtual Worlds are about to be as big as Social Networking (a phenomenon that congress seems well aware of and impressed by).	Susan Tenby
Colin J. Parris	Of course, we know that Virtual Worlds are going to be even bigger than Social Networking, and really already have been for some time. Although virtual worlds are viewed as an outgrowth of Social Networking, in reality, virtual worlds have existed much longer, and have an extensive and rich history behind them going back more than 20 years. I think hearings such as this one are a step in the right direction, and demonstrate that Congress is finally realizing the potential for community, art, science, and commerce in these worlds, and taking this potential quite seriously.
It's also great to see IBM stepping up to the plate to explain things in a way that even Congress can understand. (No offense congress peeps, but you guys aren't always the best at grokking technology. Series of tubes aside :) But that's the exciting part! The success of virtual worlds has become so tangible that now even IBM can explain this success effectively in business-speak. That's damned exciting! Now, hopefully, we can point to the very excellent examples of the incredible business, educational, and artistic applications going on in Second Life, and other virtual worlds right now, and use them to help explain these very tangible scenarios to the rest of the real life world.	Larry Johnson

Sidenote: The Pete was nice enough to track down this clip for me. Due to technical difficulties, I was unable to edit the file down at this time. So here's the whole thing, at over 300 MB.

I've provided very concise times for the entire hearing, so you can still find the parts you need quickly, after downloading the whole thing.

This is from the April 7, 2008 program.

More on the Congressional hearings on virtual worlds.

Video files: 17 MB -- 56 MB

Sound files: MP3 -- aiff

The Daily Show - The best news on TV.

Who: Cylindrian Rutabega

When: Thursday, April 10, 7pm SLT

Where:
Solaris II, Second Life

Wishfest 1.0 is a Flash Festival of music and arts!

Musicians, artists, DJs, dancers, poets and creative folks of all kinds will be performing on the Wishfest stages.

Think woodstock + earth day + a full moon rave -- just grab a stage and throw in your stream. All free! Just because we realized we could, and decided to experiment a little.

Join this group to be notified when acts are performing -- and for flash concerts in the future.

PERFORMERS:

If you'd like to perform, just drop me, Haley Bailey, an IM, and I'll send you an invite to be in the "Wishfest Performers" group.

Then you can jump on stage and type "/777" + the url of your stream.

You will be piped in to the sound system and are free to perform LIVE!

TO FIND OUT WHEN ACTS ARE PERFORMING:

Join the "Wishfest 1.0" group in Second Life.

The Node Zero Gallery opening on March 13th went great!

"Sheep Vortex" is an interactive art installation created by Spot and artist/SL programmer Somatika Xao.

Here's a little video I made of the night's events.

Teleport Now to Sheep Vortex

Music by Nine Inch Nails under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license that the whole album is released under!

Spot said he was "pleased and gratified by the experience."

Here's another installment from my interview with him (below).

Lisa: Now, when it sort of gets wispy for a minute, before it settles in on its next thing...

Spot: That's a "transition."

Lisa: What's going on when that happens?

Spot: Well, it's doing interpolation in this genetic space, and it uses cubic splines, so that everything stays smooth. The reason it gets maybe fuzzy or wispy is that it's kind of like noise or dissonence, kind of, in music. It's like, when everything is out of tune. It's like, highly structured geometry - like triangles and squares with sharp, straight lines - would be the equivalent of like pure tones, like sin waves, or a flute. You know, the visual equivalent of a flute sound in the metphor I'm trying to give - a line or a curve or a circle.

Lisa: So is that during the interpolation phase, because it's trying to figure out what it's doing?

Spot: Yeah because to go from one harmony to another harmony you have to go through chaos and disharmony, because you're going from one domain of organization to another domain of organization, and in between, you're disorganized. So that's the principle.

Lisa: This metaphor of virtual worlds in virtual worlds is one that comes up a lot lately. Are you saying that when somebody votes on a picture, that that information is stored somehow in this format, and then tallied up? Is that how that works? I'm trying to understand what information is expressed in the XML.

Spot: The XML controls the shapes, and the colors, and the motions. The votes don't get stored in there. The votes get transmitted to the server, and tallied up.

Lisa: The shapes -- like the way a vector-based format, like SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) works?

Spot: Nope. Are you asking about the renderer and the way the visual language works?

Lisa: Yep.

Spot: It's based on...what you're sort of seeing is the interference pattern between geometric transformations of the plane. So, you can imagine like, one map of the plane to a plane might be something like "rotation," ok. That's one transformation of a plane. Another transformation of the plane is like "scale," "rotate" and "translate," are the three basic linear ones. But there's also, non-linear transformations, like you know, you can imagine "bending" or "warping" the plane. So there are a zillion transformations of the plane.

Lisa: So that's what is expressed?

Spot: Yes. The XML is a list of transformations of the plane. And then, what the renderer does -- See, in order to actually turn the genetic code, the "genotype," into the "phenotype," you actually have to solve the equation. Just like, the only way to find out who a child is going to turn into, you have to let them grow up. It takes time, right. So, in order to draw the image, you have to do all these iterations, and so you generate billions of particles that move according to the transformations, and then the "interference"-- what you see as the particles move - the results make the pictures.

Lisa: So, particle systems are another thing that you hear a lot about in Second Life.

Spot: Right. This is like a custom particle system. One that generates so many particles, that everything you see, when you see a line here, it's not a line, it's particles that happened to have combined and ganged up to form a line. And so these particles are like intelligent dust, can reconfigure themselves into any of the shapes that you see, just by changing the rules that they're all following.